PMEL Arctic Wave Glider home

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory

Arctic Wave Glider

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The PMEL Arctic wave glider

PMEL has partnered with Liquid Robotics Inc. to deploy Arctic Wave Gliders (AWG) collect surface temperature measurements during the ice-free late summer in the Beaufort Sea. Powered by a battery replenished by solar cells, the Arctic wave glider is a robust, cost effective platform for ocean observations.


Arctic wave glider. Deployed in the Beaufort Sea during the ice-free late summer of 2011.	Trackline followed by Arctic Wave Glider in Summer 2011.

Deployment in late summer 2011

Two Arctic wave gliders were deployed from July 30-Sept 23, 2011 in the Beaufort Sea. Each was outfitted with thermistors embedded in the tether in the upper 6m and ~900,000 discreet measurements were returned in realtime over the 55 day mission covering more than 1300 nautical miles.

Twenty diagnostic photos were captured by a camera on the deck of the wave glider to better understand the local conditions near the ice-edge (left).

Context for the summer 2011 wave glider deployment

The 2011 Arctic wave glider deployment tracklines are shown above in the context of typical sea ice extents.

Data available:

10-min subsampled wave glider data (corrected)
Raw wave glider data
Readme

Movies:

Mackenzie Plume 2011: mp4
Mackenzie Plume 2008: mp4 | wmv